The Bloodline
by ladyanistar
Summary: 100 years after the events in Abhorsen, Lianne runs away from a life where she never fit in to the mysterious North Ancelstierre. Will she find her destiny or her death?
1. The Beginning

**Discalimer: I do not own the Old Kingdom, Abhorsen, etc, etc...**

Lianne stared at the ceiling. She had been laying there for two hours, on the faded blue bedspread, watching the popcorn ceiling. Listlessly, she turned her head and focused her dark-eyed gaze on a teddy bear, her childhood companion, missing one eye and buried behind a pile of books that were always on her bed.

"You don't believe me either, do you?" The stuffed bear sat there, his guileless black eye matching hers only in color. Lianne's eyes had lost their innocence the first time _it_ happened.

Lianne couldn't say how old she was. Young enough not to understand how different she was, and old enough to be ignored and dislike by the normal ones. It was when she was just beginning to lose herself in books, so she had her nose buried in one, sitting on a swing in the playground when _it_ happened.

It was just a twinge. Nothing much, but enough to make her look up. There was, of course, nothing to see, just kids playing happily and ignoring her. So Lianne looked back down and kept reading. The next day, on the swing again, she felt the same twinge, but weaker, like it was fading. This time, the girl blew a strand of black hair out of her face in exasperation, closed the book, and stood up. Arms outstretched, Lianne felt her way towards the wall of the school, following the feeling as it grew stronger. She was concentrating so hard that she didn't even notice she was stumbling towards a knot of popular kids, who turned to glare at her over their shoulders.

"She must be blind!" they tittered. Lianne ignored them.

Finally, the twinge was as strong as it felt like it would get. She looked down. The cause of all that was nothing, just a bird that had flown into one of the windows. It's neck was bent and broken, the cause of it's death. _Is that what I felt? _She wondered. _Imposs-_ suddenly, one of the cool kids strutted over and pushed her down. The rough playground concrete tore a hole in her jeans and knee, which she quickly clapped a hand over.

"Hey nerd, why don't you go back to your book?" he sneered. Lianne blushed bright red. Without a second thought, she staggered to her feet, and pounced on him. It was her first fight, and to Lianne's credit, she held her own, but the boy was almost two years older and had the advantage of experience. Soon she was in the principal's office, then the nurse's, facing her mother.

"Catherine Lianne," her mother demanded. "What were you _thinking?_" Lianne gritted her teeth against the sting of alcohol on her knee and the sting of hearing her first name. "I didn't do anything. He came over and pushed me down."

"Where were you?"

"Near the building, next to all the playground equipment." The woman sighed. She volunteered at the school and knew where the popular kids hung out.

"And why there? I thought you stayed by the swings."

"I _do_, but I felt a sparrow die and I went over to see." The nurse that was cleaning her cuts and scrapes looked up sharply, and her mother's eyebrows snapped together.

It was still a couple years and a few more incidents until she started seeing the psychiatrist.

"So, Catherine, your telling me you see dead people?"

"It's Lianne. And no, I can feel it. When they die." And she had. It was worst big cities were lots of people had died, she said. And when the deaths were recent. They had always harrumphed and written in there notebook, then asked the usual dumb questions.

"What year is it?"

"2028."

"Where do you live?"

"Corvere, Ancelstierre."

"What is your name?"

"Lianne Duvald."

"Full name?"

"_Catherine_..."

Eventually, Lianne had learned not to tell anyone. She trained herself not to flinch every time _it_ happened, but the instances where she had given on that she'd felt something stuck with her. Fights occurred at random intervals in her life, usually punctuated by _it_ happening, but sometimes born simply out of cruelty. But now, so close to the end of eight grade and high school- a chance, she thought, to start over- she hadn't been able to stop herself.

It was mandatory for all Ancelstierren students to get a physical at the beginning and half way through the school year. The first time in eighth grade, a nurse had come to the school and checked them there. But this time, the students had to go with their parents to the hospital.

Lianne had always dreaded going to the hospital, even when she was too young to really feel the full effects of _it_. Once, she had even disguised her violent flu to keep from going. But now, there was no way to avoid it. Even as they drove in to the parking lot, Lianne was experiencing waves of nausea. People had died here, all around, in ambulances and cars as they pulled up. Inside was worse.

"What is the matter with you?" Mrs. Duvald demanded, practically supporting her daughter by the arm. Lianne just shook her head, her usually pale face bloodless. The woman sighed and kept walking toward the reception desk, Lianne limping behind.

Suddenly it was too much. Lianne had learned to deal with small amounts of the feeling, but the hospital had such a concentration of it, her head was nearly reeling. Even as her mother let go of her arm to fill out the paperwork, Lianne was running down the hall, muttering something like, "bathroom, be right back..."

The girl shot down the sterile white corridor, nearly knocking over a nurse with a laden steel cart. She didn't stop until she drew near the end, where _it_ didn't seem so bad. This must be a little used hall, or one with low fatalities. Lianne looked up at the peeling red sign on the wall that read 'Long-Term Pediatrics Ward.' As far as the girl could tell, no one was there. But wait, there was someone, in a room at the end of the corridor. A small, pale little girl. She couldn't have been older than ten, and slender as a twig. Her eyes were closed, and from were she stood in the hall, Lianne could see the delicate tracing of veins on her eyelids. The only sign she was alive was the rise and fall of her thin chest, and the clamor of nurses and doctors around her. Lianne couldn't here what they were saying, they were talking to fast to understand.

"Losing.."

"Heart rate too low..."

And suddenly, the girl died. Lianne could have pinpointed the moment, she felt _it_ much clearer than she ever had before. And somehow, there was the overwhelming need to follow after the spirit. Lianne took a step forward. Her feet did not move, but suddenly she was standing in an icy cold river, it's wicked, playful current dancing around her ankles. The only conspicuous object in the flat plain all around was another person, standing in the middle of the river, seeming to decide whether to follow the current or to approach Lianne. It was the little girl from the hospital. Hardly aware of what she was doing, Lianne reached out and grabbed the girl's wrist, pulling her backwards and towards what she, strangely, knew to be Life-

-and she was back, and freezing. The floor around her feet was covered with frost, for some odd reason. Wasn't it spring? And then she realized, her mother was standing in front of her, the hands on her shoulders shaking, her eyes furious. Lianne, nonplussed, look passed her and listened to a new voice coming from the hospital room.

"I saw her! I did! Where did the girl go?" But then Mrs. Duvald was dragging her away, practically throwing her into the car.

"Good God Lianne, why do you have to do these things? Why do you have to be so much like she was?"

"Like who?" Lianne asked, but her mother didn't answer. They drove home in silence. And when they finally pulled into the garage and entered the kitchen, Lianne's mother told her about Cathlin.

"I always thought you'd grow out of it. All my other brothers and sisters did," her mother began. "Except Cathlin."

"Why haven't we ever visited Aunt Cathlin, then?" Lianne interrupted.

"Cathlin is dead. She brought it on herself, really. She kept on insisting that she could sense death. For a while we ignored it, but it became a real problem when she was your age. That was when she took things too far.

"We were outside one day. It was raining, and your aunt Liddie and I were sitting under the overhang. Cathlin didn't care. She danced around in it, getting soaked to the skin. So she was closest when the car crashed into the old oak tree in front of the house." Mrs. Duvald shook her head. "They never said, but we knew the poor fool was drunk. Well, Liddie and I screamed for your grandfather, but Cathlin ran straight for the car. We followed soon after. And even now, thirty years later, I still remember. All that blood. We knew he was dead the moment we saw him. But Cathlin just stood there like she was frozen. And we realized that she was! The rainwater and blood around her was frozen and frosted. And then all the sudden the man was gasping, and spitting out blood. He survived, and it was a miracle that he did. Liddie and I would have forgotten all about what happened with Cathlin if she didn't insist to our father, later, that she had risen him from the dead. After that, she wouldn't visit the therapist. She became unreasonable. Finally, the only thing left to do was to take her to the asylum." Lianne had never seen that look on her mother's face. It was nostalgic, sad, and bitterly regretful at the same time.

"Cathlin begg- well, she didn't like it there. She wasted away before our eyes like a wraith, and died. She stopped eating. Now do you see why I take you to that bloody expensive psychiatrist? Because I don't want you to end up as bloody crazy as my sister did!" Her voice had risen an octave in the last sentence. Lianne stood up, face red with fury.

"I'm not crazy! I'm not imagining things! You should have listened to your sister when she begged you for mercy!"

Mrs. Duvald turned paper white. The silence stretched out, and when she finally spoke, it was in a whisper.

"I should have known you would end up like her. You looked just like Cathlin, you acted just like her. Always carrying around a bloody book like her best friend. But for a while a was able to think that you might yet change. But your mind was just as batty as hers was, in the end. I should have taken it as an omen when your father died in that car crashed, and you were born as pale as a bloody corpse with all that black hair."

Then Lianne dashed for her room, unable to keep a few tears from escaping her dark eyes. She hadn't stopped to argue out her mother's explanation for the ice, or think once she had reached her bed about how her mother had sworn and mentioned her father, both things she rarely did. But Lianne was not in the mood to think about anything except how terribly life had gone wrong. And after two hours in her room, alone except for bad memories, Lianne realized, she had to leave.

**Okay, chapter two should be up soon. Please review!**


	2. The Vision

Disclaimer: Same as ever. I wouldn't post this on a fanfiction site if I owned any of these awesome places/people and not Garth Nix, would I?

Lianne stood behind the first roll of rusted barbed wire and stared at the broken and tumbling wall that lay between her and her unlikely destination. It was old and crumbled and posed no physical barrier, but something about it implied that it had once been a fearsome barrier between Ancelstierre Proper and North Ancelstierre.

Lianne remembered hearing stories about when Northern Ancelstierre had once been another country, but it had been annexed more than fifty years by the time she was born. Most of what she remembered about the stories were that odd things happened up north, and practically no one lived there.

_I'm odd_, she thought bitterly to herself. _Maybe that is where I am meant to be._ And indeed, her journey north proved she wasn't the only one who found this place strange.

She had left three days before, not really knowing where she was headed. Lianne had enough money to buy a bus ticket, and the cheapest route headed towards some place called Edge, a little town past the wall that stood before her. The bus, however, did not go to the wall, or even too close to it. Apparently, electronics broke down with an alarming frequency in that area, and beyond the wall. So, it dropped her off in a tiny little hamlet that had never really seen better days, and from there she got directions to Edge, which was about half a days walk away. Her plan was to pass herself off as old enough to work, since she was tall for her age, an... well, she hadn't thought much further. She hoped that, this far north, no one would be interested in checking to see if that was her real age.

Lianne sighed and checked her dwindling money. It should be enough, supposing she could follow through on her plan. She shouldered her backpack and approached the wall.

When she reached it, Lianne stopped to examine the crumbled stone and mortar. To her surprise, the surface swam with faint, gold marks. They never bumped into each other and never touched, but somehow gave the appearance of a great chain. The girl lifted her hand to touch it, and got very close, but an inch from the stone she realized that it was giving off heat and snatched her hand away. Lianne kept walking, dismissing it as a trick of the light.

It was a little past noon when Lianne reached Edge, and unusually cold. She had already put on the heavier clothes she'd brought, thinking vaguely that winter might set in early up north, but this kind of weather in the spring was ridiculous, and windy. The air within the town was only marginally stiller, and the attitude towards her was plenty cold.

Lianne soon realized that there were two groups of very different people in Edge. The first was made up of people not unlike the ones from Ancelstierre Proper, albeit warier looking. The second group was much smaller, and Lianne noted with some surprise that these men and women openly carried weapons. But not guns, swords, and knives. That made the girl look around a little more at the buildings. Present, horses, carts, gas lamps. Not present, cars or anything mechanical. The bus driver had said the buses broke down, he didn't say anything about them not working. Did nothing electronic work here? Impossible. Lianne put it out of here mind.

The girl explored the town leisurely, pausing occasionally to read 'help wanted' signs posted in store windows. None of the jobs available would work, they would make it obvious that she was just a tall thirteen. She may have seen more signs, but when she noticed that someone was staring at her, she hurried on. It was one of the second group, a man with a pale face and two wicked swords. She didn't want to bother _him_. Finally, ready to give up, another sign caught her eye.

Lianne almost didn't see it, the window was so grubby. It advertised a full-time job in a grocery store, with mediocre pay and food and board included. Seeing no other options, Lianne entered.

The cram-packed shelves were dusty, and everything, she noticed, was packed by hand and the kind of stuff that would keep well. No soda can or toilet paper here. There gas lights cast an eerie glow over the entire store, making the shadows on the enormously fat man in the corners face dance. He was snoring loudly, his enormous paunch rising and falling with each sawing bellow. Lianne used a feather duster on the nearest shelf to poke him.

"Hello? I'm here about the job..." but the man, now wide awake, interrupted.

"What are you doin'? Didn't I say I weren't selling to you bloody savages? Get out!"

"I'm here about the job!" Lianne insisted. The man suddenly relaxed.

"'scuse me, yea just looked like one 'o them locals. Nasty lot, don't get tied up with _them_. How old are yea?"

Lianne had been rehearsing this ever since she left home.

"Fifteen, but my birthdays is in two weeks."

The store owner's eyes narrowed, he looked her over suspiciously. Finally, he nodded.

"Yea got it. No bloody people in this town, we never get any new employees. We're closed now, so you start in the morning. Come back later and I'll introduce you to me sisters. I'm Avlick, by the way."

Lianne left, a little surprised at her good luck. Avlick was fat and dirty and the grocery store was in need of dusting and organization, but he didn't seem too bad. The girl turned the street corner into an alley, barely aware of where she was going. At the end of the narrow street, she suddenly stopped, having heard voices.

"-not from Clovencrest, and no place south of there she could have come from, but obviously not Ancelstierren." She realized that the speaker was the man she had caught staring at her earlier, and the audience two equally watchful people with weapons. Lianne stepped from the alley, her curiosity piqued.

When they saw her, all three gave a start, like naughty children caught at something they shouldn't be doing. But their inquisitive expression changed to blankness the minute she opened her mouth.

"Er, excuse me, but was it me you were talking about?"

The man shook his head. He seemed disappointed. Without another word, he and the three people walked away.

"Not Ancelstierren indeed," muttered Gwyr as they walked away from the strange girl. "Did you hear her accent? As thin-blooded as the shiftiest-eyed laziest Southerner you could find."

"Shut up," retorted Berenice. "She looked the part, didn't she? Spitting image of every portrait I've ever seen of Li-"

Nisien cut her off before she could finish. "Keep your mouth shut. And she fooled you to, Gwyr. She must have caught me looking at her and tried to investigate. Never mind though. The Clayr will be expecting us back soon. We will have to tell them we have failed."

"Why bother? They didn't foresee us succeeding, did they?" demanded Berenice. "This is probably just another possible future that would have happened if so-and-so's brother had married that crazy Northerner. Don't sweat it too much."

"It isn't a possible future," growled Gwyr. "They've been having the same damn vision for one hundred years. How can it be wrong?"

But Nisien couldn't help but doubt that the Bloodlines in any child could possible run strong enough to produce another Abhorsen, not now, after a century and no one eligible. However, if the Clayr thought that the Old Kingdom could be restored, it was his duty as a Royal Guard to obey them in the absence of a king or queen. Nisien hurried to keep up with his friends as they walked away from the strange girl that looked so like the last Abhorsen.


	3. The Watcher

**Disclaimer: See chapters one and two.**

"What're yea waitin' for, yea lazy whelp! Yer late!"

_Late for what?_ Lianne wondered as Avlik steered her inside the dirty store. Her mind was still occupied by the strangers she had seen talking about a girl she knew was her. What had they been talking about?

Lianne didn't have much more time to think, because Avlick steered her into a back room and up a flight of narrow stairs. At the top was a gaunt old hag who offered no name but ma'am and set her to work peeling potatoes. Lianne tried to encourage her to talk, but it was a hopeless enterprise.

"Why isn't there any electricity here?"

The woman shrugged and made the sign of the cross over her bony shoulders. One of the few things she said was,

"We'll have to dig something up fer ya. Yer clothes won't last much longer by the looks of 'em."

"What are you talking about?" asked Lianne. What was the matter with her clothes?

"Look at the sleeves."

Lianne did, and to her surprise, the threads were coming out by the dozen and, to all appearances, seemed to be dissolving. She inspected other seams and found the same.

"Why does that happen? Is there something in the air?"

"Children were meant ta be seen an' not heard." At this, Lianne sighed and went back to peeling potatoes.

Dinner would have been miserable with just the three of them, but it was made even worse by the appearance of a gangly, scruffy boy in his late teens who pounded down the hallway from an anonymous and dusty room someplace. Upon hearing that Lianne was going to be working in the store from now on, he voiced his displeasure loudly and said, repeatedly, that he could do everything on his own, an argument not exactly backed up by the store's appearance. Lianne climbed up the stairs with Avlick's sister and up yet another to the attic, feeling very disheartened.

"This'll do," Ma'am pulled an ancient sweater out of a dusty chest and threw it at Lianne. Pants and shoes followed. It didn't escape the girl that none of these things were machine made. What was wrong with this town? Why wasn't there any electricity and how come everything she owned was dissolving?

The day ended with Lianne curled up on a narrow bed in the attic, with a million questions and no answers.

Not far away, as the girl closed her eyes, another kind of being entirely opened his. It was the first time in a century, and the being was glad to do so. He had hidden in this hill outside of Edge in a place once called the Old Kingdom ever since Linnoria betrayed her twin and the country's last hopes went up in Free Magic tainted flame. He had lain here and waited ever since the untimely deaths of the royal family that had hosted the briefest Golden Age in the Kingdom's history, and now the sleeping girl in the humble town beneath him had awakened the being.

He forgot himself and tried to stretch, making the hill buck and roll. The being reminded himself that it wouldn't be much longer, and the hill settled down quietly for one more night.

Another creature was present outside Edge, and this one more malevolent and less inclined to remain still. It had no name, and had once been alive, but those days were over. It was something that would have once been exterminated on the spot, if not by the local Charter mage then the Abhorsen.

But there had been no Abhorsen for a hundred years, and with the breaking of the Wall the Charter was distant and cold. It did make it nearly impossible for the weaker-willed spirits to push their way out of death and into a body, and even harder to maintain the body. This Dead thing had been feeding off mice, rabbits, and the like, and, focusing it's shriveled and decaying eyes on Edge, it longed for fresh Life.

The next day boded little better for Lianne. She woke up to Avlick screeching for her to hurry up and get down, and spent the morning scrubbing floors and windows, organizing shelves, and dusting everything that stayed still long enough. The boy that was supposed to be helping was nowhere to be found.

When she left for a breather, the store looked a little better than before, but the floors needed sweeping, then mopping (all of which could have been done with a vacuum cleaner, if she had one) and then the back rooms would have to be done. It was a ridiculous amount of work for her to do on her own, but it seemed like no one was going to help her.

Lianne suddenly hated the sight of Edge. The leaning houses were stifling her, and the faint smell of warm cobblestones under her feet was making her gag. She had to get out of here! Nearly bowling people over in the street, Lianne rushed out of the main square and beyond the town limits. Feeling only marginally better under the sparse and stunted trees, Lianne walked out a little further and stopped at the top of a hill. Panting slightly, she settled down on a convenient rock, warmed slightly by the sun on the cool spring day. Lianne's childhood in the city of Corvere kept her from noticing anything unusual about the utter silence. Nothing rustled, or chirped. It was quiet.

The Dead thing watched in the shade of a bush, it's rotted mind full of hope.

Lianne walked toward it, unwitting.

Fifty paces away. Still coming. The Dead thing was jubilant, here, at last, was something living stupid enough to get close.

Suddenly, Lianne felt _it_, and immediately knew this was not the usual kind. It struck a sour tone in her brain, and all of her instincts said _Run!_ But at the same time, the creature leapt from the bushes at a petrified Lianne, decaying lungs and throat chortling triumphantly.

The being in the hill watched bemusedly as the girl walked right towards the Dead thing. She had obviously not been baptized in the Charter, or she would have sensed his presence when she sat literally on top of him. He watched as the free-willed creature leapt at her throat, and in its impatient and sun-stupid state, missing completely. But the girl was frozen in place, petrified with fear, and the creature would pounce again, this time accurately.

At the last possible moment, the being leapt from the hill in a column of white fire, and, crackling, hurtled at the Dead thing, consuming it in a fountain of gold sparks. This time the girl ran.

Lianne stumbled through the overgrowth as fast as her legs would carry her. She was going straight home as soon as she could, her mother could scold and punish all she wanted, but anything was worth getting out of this backward place. Best case, she was hallucinating. Worst, she wasn't.

Finally, Lianne took her eyes off her feet long enough to realize she was running in the wrong direction. Pulling to a halt, she practically flopped down on the nearest bush, and then remembering that that was what the Thing had pounced from, jumped back up.

"Oh, so jumpy."

Lianne gave a start like she had been shot. "Who are you?" she called in the direction of the voice.

"A friend."

"Then come out."

The voice chuckled.

"Giving orders so soon? And if I don't come out, will you come to me?"

Lianne pictured what could be waiting for her if she followed the voice and felt a cold sweat break out on her palms.

"No."

The voice laughed again, this time whole-heartedly.

"Then I shall come to you."

Nothing that Lianne would have ever thought the voice could belong to emerged from the scraggly bushes. A white cat, with livid green eyes.

"You talk?" she demanded.

"I've been waiting for you for a century, and this is what I get?"

"I don't know who you are, but you are obviously a hallucination."

The cat shrugged, a curious gesture for a feline.

"I am called Mogget in this form, and I am certainly not a hallucination. But if you choose not to believe me..." Mogget shrugged again. Then he yawned, and something that glinted in the sun dropped onto the sparse grass.

"You may take that to the Royal Guard who you talked to yesterday. Tell him it's from Yrael."

"Royal Guard? You mean that man?" but the cat turned and left, leaving behind Lianne, her questions, and the object in the grass. The girl approached it carefully, fearful that it might explode, or something equally unpleasant.

It was a silver ring.

**So there. If you know where this story is going, you know more then I do. PLEASE REVIEW!**


	4. The Ring

**Disclaimer: See Chapters Two and Three.**

Nisien sat in the nearly deserted common room, absentmindedly drawing his finger back and forth through the dust of the table top. He looked up briefly, Gwyr and Berenice were doing likewise. He sighed and went back into his trance. It had been a long night. The three of them had been sent by the Clayr to investigate the visions they'd been having. They had seen the heirs to the Old Kingdom finally emerging after one hundred years of nothing, one for the Abhorsen and one to inherit the crown, and they had been hopeful that they would find someone. He had thought they had finally completed the task, when Nisien saw the strange girl, but she was Ancelstierren, and the Clayr had not mentioned that.

He couldn't help but think that this would all be easier if the Charter was what it used to be. In his grandfather's time, it had been as strong and steady as the Ratterlin. The Charter Mages were stronger, and the Charter Stones glowed brighter. But after the last Abhorsen perished, the Charter had gotten harder and harder to reach, noticeably, even, in his own time. Someday, would it be gone forever?

Berenice elbowing him sharply in the ribs woke him up. She was gesturing towards the door, where a stranger had just entered. It was the girl! Nisisen started and watched with interest as she scanned the common room. Obviously, she was looking for them, because as soon as she saw the three companions, she headed straight for the table.

Lianne had followed Mogget's orders and checked every inn in the small town she could find. It hadn't been a long search, so it was still early in the afternoon when she found them. The man was sitting in a table in the corner, flanked on either side by the two people she had seen him talking to earlier. They were all three watching her warily. Lianne gripped the silver ring a little tighter, and walked towards them.

"Are you a royal guard?" she addressed the man. He was oldest, and seemed to be the leader. He started when she said this.

"Ancelstierre is a democracy, what royalty would you be talking about?" he said innocently. Lianne's heart sank. Had Mogget been a hallucination after all? No, she had the ring. That was proof enough.

"Well, if you are, here." She dropped the silver ring onto the table, where it clattered loudly. "It's from Irul. I mean, Yral, or...something."

"Yrael?" It was the woman who spoke. She suddenly looked very guilty, like she had said something she shouldn't have.

"Yes, that's right. The cat."

The three companions looked at each other, and back to Lianne. It was the second man who finally spoke.

"Well, Nisien, you found one. Now what?"

"Keep up, Lianne. We should make it to the river by nightfall."

Lianne sighed and tried half-heartedly to spur the horse to a faster gait. It looked at her with one dark eye, no doubt thinking that this was the stupidest rider it had ever had. After Nisien surmised that she didn't need to get anything from the grocery store, they had set off on, of all things, a horse. The creature was determined to make Lianne's life miserable.

Gwyr and Berenice were off to some place she had never heard of, the Clayr's Glacier, and Nisien was taking her to another place mysteriously missing from any maps she has seen called the Abhorsen's House. They had only been traveling for about an hour, and Lianne hadn't been able to coax him into talking much.

"So, this is another country, after all? With a king?" she asked.

"There has been no king or queen for one hundred years, since Queen Ellimere. Or Abhorsen."

"Abhorsen?"

"To bind the Dead and keep the Kingdom in order."

Lianne digested that for a moment. Why would the Dead need to be bound? Unless they had an uncanny habit of getting up... the girl thought back to the Thing that attacked her and shivered. Had it not been, well, alive? She had thought it was some kind of rabid animal, but the smell was so awful, and there was _it._ Nisisen had already dismissed _it_ as her 'sensing death.' He claimed that it would get easier to control. She hoped so.

"How do Dead things, er... get back out of the ground?"

Nisien looked back over his shoulder at her, looking slightly bemused.

"Magic, the Charter."

"Oh, right. And this is what the Abhorsen uses to bind them, right?"

"Yes."

Lianne tried to imagine what the Abhorsen must be like. After that day's escapades, she had a hard time doubting the presence of magic or madness.

"So, have you found someone to be the Abhorsen? I'm still not understanding all of this."

"Yes, you."

Sorry that took me so long. This isn't the best chapter, but I kinda had a little writer's block going. Stick with me guys; this will only get better, promise!


	5. The Charter

**Disclaimer: See previous chapter.**

**Sorry this was such a long wait. Keep reviewing!**

The rain dripped on the two travelers dismally, mirroring Lianne's mood. She was thirteen, why would anyone think she was going to inherit some mysterious power to bind the Dead, or whatever? She shook the water droplets off of the jacket she had gotten from the store. She wondered if Avlick missed her yet? _It would serve him right_, she thought to herself. She bowed her head against the rain and urged the horse a little faster. Probably hoping she was in a hurry to get someplace where they could both be dry, the horse complied until Lianne was riding next to Nisien.

"You said magic. As far as I know, I don't have any."

He shrugged.

"You haven't been baptized in the Charter yet."

Lianne had been baptized, at a church in Corvere, but she had a feeling that this wasn't what he was talking about. But the rain put a damper on her mood, so she didn't press the matter further, just tucked a few wayward strands of black hair back into her hood.

"We'll stop at Roble's Town soon, there should be a priest there."

Lianne nodded sullenly, shedding water. It all sounded like nonsense to her, but she'd let him go on with it. At least Nisien had promised free food. She hadn't eaten since breakfast, and it was late in the afternoon.

A little while later, they arrived at Roble's Town. It was what she expected, a town marginally bigger than Edge, with all the Ancelstierrens absent. She wasn't surprised, she had never heard of this place, and she had little doubt that few Ancelstierrens had, either.

Lianne would have eaten right away, but Nisien dragged her to a house one of the locals claimed belonged to the 'mage.' Lianne didn't bother asking.

Nisien walked in as soon as they were admitted inside, sitting down at a table with a thin, wan looking man and talking in low voices, leaving the girl at a loss in the door way. She finally sat down on a stool in the corner and surveyed her surroundings. They were in one large room, but doors indicated that there were more. It was packed with clutter, the far wall sporting an enormous book case, shelves bending under the weight of the books crammed into it, and the wall closest to the table were Nisien and the man sat had a large window, streaming with water from the steadying rain. Lianne wondered where Mogget was right now. She hadn't seen him since that morning, and she had half expected him- it- to show up again.

Suddenly, the stranger stood up and went off into one of the other rooms.

"Where is he going?" she asked Nisien.

"Just to get something. He'll be back in a moment."

"What am I supposed to do?"

"Sit still."

Lianne fell silent. The man was back soon, carting a brazier with an armful of logs, muttering to himself under his breath. He set it down on the floor, and spoke a few words in a language Lianne didn't recognize. Suddenly, the logs burst into flame, making the girl gasp. Apparently unsurprised, the mage allowed the fire to recede a little before reaching in with both hands, bringing them up unburned and covered with ash. With one hand, he traced a strange circular mark on his forehead, and repeated the design on hers. The man touched his own mark, then brushed the ash off of Lianne's, satisfied. The girl reached up automatically, surprised to find that she could feel the mark on her skin, like it had been burned on.

"There. She will, of course, have to be trained, but you can arrange for that easily enough. But if I were you I would move on to the House quickly, there have been rumors of Dead stirring, and Abhorsen or not, she is little use without bells or training." The man said all this briskly, like she was too dumb to realize she was being talked about.

"What was that? What is this for?" Lianne gestured towards the mark.

"You'll be able to reach the Charter now, and to work magic," Nisien said, as if that was an explanation enough. Lianne sighed and followed him out the door and back to the horses.

"Aren't we going to eat?"

"The mage has offered us provisions." Lianne noticed now that Nisien was carrying a bundle wrapped in leather. The girl sighed. It looked like it could be a while till they actually had a decent meal.

"Are you ever going to just answer me, or do you always talk in riddles? You haven't told me anything worth knowing yet."

Nisien sighed. "If I tried to tell you the whole story, it would take all day."

"Oh, because we're doing something pressing right now."

So, he told her. Lianne wasn't sure if she believed half of what he said, but it was convincing. She constantly had to interrupt him to ask him the meaning of words, like Clayr and the Bright Shiners. He wasn't lying, it was nearly dark when he had passed Lianne's ancestor Lirael binding Orannis.

"Lirael was one of the best Abhorsens the Old Kingdom has seen. But none of her children had the aptitude to follow in her footsteps, although not from lack of trying. Her sister, Sabriel, had two children. The younger one, Prince Sameth, disappeared a few years after Orranis was bound. Ellimere married, had children, and after her mother died, became queen. One of her children, Linnoria, however, caused the downfall of the royal family. Ellimere and her husband were killed an accident while over the Wall, and Lirael was acting as regent. Linnoria thought Lirael wasn't capable of being the queen and Abhorsen, although her own grandmother had managed it. She told Lirael one or the other. She refused, of course. Linnoria was furious, furious enough to dig up an old spell that would bring about the Abhorsen's destruction. However, it demanded the sacrifice of the caster's blood kin. So, Linnoria lured her twin brother to his death, and when the spell failed, her own as well. Things deteriorated without the help of mad royal children after that. You are the first in your line in a hundred years that shows the promise necessary to become Abhorsen."

Lianne was silent for a long time, remembering her aunt Cathlin, and the Mogget-thing, the idea seeming less and less far-fetched the more she thought about it.

"So…what? What exactly do you want me to do? The Old Kingdom didn't just get this way, it took years for it to deteriorate into part of Ancelstierre. Isn't there anyone else? Someone who actually knows what they're doing? Someone _older_?"

"There is no one," Nisien replied, a little too quickly. Deep lines appeared on his forehead, as if he were remembering something unpleasant.

Nisien refused to say more, but promised to answer further questions- and begin teaching her magic- first thing in the morning. Lianne sighed, and contented herself with another long wait, for food and explanations.

**Well, hopefully I'll be adding the next chapter a little sooner than I added this one. Thanks for being patient, guys!**


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